CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND EDUCATION Corporate Parenting .

5.4Education: Of Croydon’s care leaver population, 66% (518) are in either full time (58%, 456) or part time (8%, 62)education, employment or training. The remaining 36% (267) is made up of 28% (222) who are NEET and 6% (45)for whom we don’t know their current status. The UASC part of the cohort have higher EET rates (72% overall, 65%full time, 7% part time) and lower NEET (20%). The non-UASC group have lower EET rates (only 55% overall, 45%full time, 10% part time) and much higher NEET (43%).5.5Placement stability: The vast majority (570, 73%) of Croydon’s care leavers are now in accommodation classed asIndependent Living, predominantly Private Tenancies and Landlord Bond Schemes. Around 6% (46) are living withtheir former foster carers (“staying put”), a figure that has been broadly stable since August 2018, prior to which itrose from 4% (27) in April 2018. Of Croydon’s 779 care leavers, we know that 441 (57%) are still living within theborough and 257 (33%) are residing outside the borough.5.6Care Leavers as parents: Of Croydon’s 779 care leavers, 66 (8%) left care as parents. Of those 66, 30 (45%) haveparental responsibility for their child/all of their children. A further three (5%) have multiple children, but do not haveparental responsibility for all of them. The remaining 33 care leavers who left care as a parent (50%) do not haveparental responsibility for their child/children. Only 14 (21%) of the care leavers who left care as a parent wereUASC, a much lower proportion than the 63% of all care leavers who were UASC.5.7Care Leavers known to the Youth Offending Service (YOS): Of Croydon’s 779 care leavers, 99 (13%) wereknown to the YOS since 1/6/14. Sixty five were non-UASC, which represents 23% of the non-UASC care leavercohort. Only 34 of the care leavers were UASC, just 7% of the UASC care leaver cohort. Considering only the 99care leavers who were known to YOS since 1/6/14, one third were UASC, two thirds were non-UASC. This is instark contrast to the overall care leaver cohort, which is almost two thirds UASC and just over one third non-UASC.In short, non-UASC care leavers are more than three times more likely to have been known to YOS than UASCcare leavers.6.Health6.1Delivering timely initial health assessments for our children looked after has been a challenge historically, so inautumn 2018 an internal lean process review was commissioned to look at reasons for this. The review led to a setof recommendations for improvement supported by a detailed multi-agency action plan articulating the key actionsrequired to improve performance not only for initial health assessments and review health assessments but alsodentals, immunisations and strengths and difficulties questionnaires. The action plan is regularly reviewed andperformance challenged at the bi monthly, multi- agency Children in Care Health Strategic and monthly Operationalgroups and is focused on promoting timely health interventions.7

6.2The graph below outlines current performance on a number of key health indicators.6.3 The line graph on below shows our performance against two key performance health indicators for children looked after:1. % initial health assessments requested for health service within 3 working days of date child become looked after(LAC 17); and2. % initial health assessments delivered within 20 working days of date child became looked after (LAC 18)6.4 Performance against these indicators has improved since April 2019 from a low base and it is acknowledged that furtherattention is required in this area ensuring that recording on the system happens in a more timely way to provide a moreaccurate and up to date picture of performance. A multi-agency Children Looked After Operational Health Group hasbeen set up and has been meeting on a monthly basis since March 2019 to tackle blockages to the delivery of timelyhealth assessments.8

6.5 A recent analysis of strengths and difficulties questionnaires (SDQs) of 55 children looked after found that 64% childrenhad low total difficulty score, 7% had a medium score 29% had a high difficulty score. A high difficulty score indicateswhere additional support may be needed (e.g. CAMHS). Of the sample reviewed, UASC children young people hadsignificantly lower scores than local CLA. There is an annual requirement for Children’s Social Care to assess theemotional and wellbeing needs of our children in care through an SDQ. At the end of March 2019 69% where completedin a timely way. In May 2019 this had risen to 82%. A refreshed approach to undertaking SDQs will be launched in July2019 and we will be analysing closely the impact of new ways of working, in particular, the services and support identifiedchildren are offered.6.6 In 2017/18 CAMHS received 101 referrals for children looked after, 90% of which were accepted, this was around 11% ofthe total CLA population (research suggests that rate of mental ill health among CLA is typically 50%) CAMHs operate apriority service for children in care. They offer weekly consultation sessions for social workers who are concerned aboutthe emotional health and wellbeing of the children they are supporting and guide them on the best approach to take.Awareness raising of the CAMHs support offer is currently taking place.9

7. Education of children in care7.1 Schools: There are 548 pupils of statutory school age (May ’19). 27 children currently have no school place (and 20attend our UASC provision-May ‘19). 55% attend school in Croydon and 45% outside (May ‘19). 6% attend specialschools (May ‘19),7.2 Special educational needs and disabilities: 41% of CLA of stat school age have a recorded special educational needor disability, compared to national average of 14.6%. 88 (16%) school age pupils recorded as having an EHCP for specialeducational needs (national average is 2.9%).7.3 School stage: There are 24 children of nursery age, 155 of primary age, 370 of secondary age and 393 post 16 (June2019). 81% of school age children attend ‘good’ or ‘outstanding ‘OFSTED schools’ in May 19.7.4 Attendance and exclusions: 91.4% cumulative attendance of children in care of statutory school age (June 2019).Persistent absence rates are high in 2019 at 19% and 34% at post-16. In 2017-18 there were no reported permanentexclusions for statutory school age children in care7.5 Educational Attainment7.6 Year 1: 50% children received expected standard in phonics screening check (compared to 85% for all Croydon children,82% all children nationally and 41% CLA nationally)7.7 Key Stage 1: 60% of CLA achieved combined expected standards in reading, writing and maths (compared to 75% allchildren nationally and 41% CLA nationally)7.8 Key Stage 2: 55% of children achieved combined expected standards in reading, writing and maths (compared to 66%for all Croydon children, 64% nationally and 34% CLA nationally)7.9 Key Stage 4: 7% of children achieved levels 4-9 in English and Maths (compared to 63% for all Croydon children, 59%all children nationally and 19% CLA nationally)7.10 Key Stage 5: 50% of children achieved 1 or more A*-C’s at A-level (compared to 77.4% national)10

7.117.12Personal educational plans (PEPs) and pathway plansThe number of completed PEPs continues to improve from a low base, all children with an outstanding PEP are nowtracked by a key worker and have an action plan for completion. A permanent Head of the Virtual School has beenappointed who is overseeing improvements within the service. All social work teams now receive outstanding PEP dataon the weekly performance snapshot. In addition to this, designated teachers have been given additional training,culminating in the service achieving its highest performance in the past 13 months at 82% (June 2019).11

8. Feedback from children and young people in our care8.1 The comments below were taken form an engagement session with our Children in Care Council (Empire) on 6 Nov2018. The Council has more work to do to develop this forum and improve its links with the service to ensure thatfeedback from children and young people in our care is used to drive service improvement, measure impact and todevelop forums to engage care leavers more effectively.12

9. Key achievements9.1 Getting basics right: We are continuing to improve the timeliness of core social work tasks. There has been a steadyimprovement in a number of key Children Looked After indicators including; timely visits which now stand at 95%, timelyCLA reviews at 88% (up from 66% in April 2018). 89% of care leavers have an up to date pathway plan (up from 74%in April 2019). Improvement in performance indicators around health and education are from a low base and it isacknowledged that, although recent figures are encouraging, there is more to do here to sustain performance andimprove the quality and timeliness of PEPs and health assessments. Partnership working and communication isimproving amongst health, foster carers, Children’s Social Care and the Virtual School. It is expected that this will helpdrive forward improved ways of working to deliver key health services for children and young people in our care. Wehave identified two CSC Children in Care ‘Health champions’ who working with our co-located health team and socialwork teams are promoting the health and wellbeing of children who have not received timely health interventions. Otherencouraging indicators are set out below:9.2 Proximity to home: 84% of children are placed less than 20 miles from home (compared with 74% national average)9.3 Post 16: 65% of care leavers in employment, education, or training (EET) on their 17th to 21st Birthday (compared with50% national average)9.4 Accommodation: 90% of care leavers in suitable accommodation on their 17th to 21st Birthday (compared with 84%national average)9.5 A Local Offer for Care Leavers: was published in September 2018. Its aim is to give care leavers an understanding ofthe services they can expect from the council. The need for a Local Offer arises from the introduction of the Childrenand Social Work Act 2017 which directs councils publish information about the services they provide. In Croydon, webelieve that our published Local Offer should go beyond our legal requirement and should, rather, be a morecomprehensive document giving a detailed overview of exactly what we offer, how we will deliver it, as well as otherinformation about services for care leavers provided by others. The information in our local offer wi

4.12 Involvement with Youth Offending Service: There are 29 children looked after currently working with the Youth Offending Service. 55% are from Black backgrounds, this group is overrepresented compared to the wider children looked after population and of these 75% are local children looked after. 5.